Why I Can’t Watch Mainstream Porn Without Losing the Mood — and What I’m Doing Instead

DECLIMAXED

Why I Still Can’t Watch Porn Without Losing the Mood — and What I’m Doing Instead

I don’t know about you, but there’s very little porn I can watch without eventually getting pulled out of the moment. I’m not someone with an endless list of kink-blocks. If anything, I’m pretty open. But more often than not, something catches in my brain before I ever get to the good part.

It might start with a thumbnail. Or a title. Or the general tone of the content pool I’m browsing. So many of them paint women as sluts, whores, cum-buckets to be used, degraded, dehumanized, like their only job is to be disposable. Honestly, just scrolling is exhausting. Before I’ve even hit play, I already feel… disconnected.

If I do press play, things usually start out fine. Everyone’s having fun, or so it seems. But then those familiar questions sneak in.
Is she actually enjoying herself?
Does she know she’s being filmed?
Did she really say yes to this version of the scene?

Sometimes it’s not even about consent. It’s the performance itself. The dead-eyed rhythm. The mechanical jackhammering. The woman either looks like she’s counting ceiling tiles waiting for it to be over, or way too enthusiastic for what her partner is doing to her.

That’s when the switch flips for me. I go from aroused to detached. From in it to out of it. And I just sit there, vibrator buzzing, trying to ignore the spiral. I might even rest it on my forehead like it’s some kind of glitchy reset button.
Unfulfilled.
Declimaxed.
Philosophizing a moment that could’ve just been fun, but somehow turned sad.

And I haven’t even gotten to the lack of female pleasure on screen. Like, Jesus! Her clit is right there. Could we please do something with it? Not just treat it like a mysterious button that maybe gets brushed once by accident?

I’ve tried branching out. Dabbled in hentai, 3D anime-style porn, and other animated options. And yes, those usually sidestep the consent issue entirely. But then I’m usually left staring at baffling character design: hyper-inflated breasts, terrifying moans, and zero resemblance to anything remotely human. Let alone pleasurable.

And frankly, I don’t have four hours to kill in search of the perfect video for me.

Now, I know what you might say: “Listen, person behind Play With Me, there’s plenty of women-domme content where the power balance flips. Full agency, full control.” And yes,  you’d be right. But it still doesn’t work for me. I don’t get a kick out of that either.

I don’t want degradation. Not of women, not of men.

And yes, I know about ethical porn. Bellesa. Erika Lust. The indie folks doing it right. And I support what they’re building. But even then, even with all the good intentions and better lighting and after-scene interviews, I still often feel something’s missing.

I don’t want to have to choose between ethics and arousal, between story and heat, between respect and getting off.

That’s what I’m chasing. And when I can’t find it?
I write it.

 

This Isn’t New for Me

Back in 2019, I wrote an article for a condom brand. A curated list of ethical porn creators and platforms that were trying to shift the industry. I spotlighted sites like Erika Lust, Carré Rose, Bellesa, Anoushka, Pink & White, and others working to center consent, intimacy, and diversity.

I still stand behind that mission. Wholeheartedly.

I’m fully in support of any site, director, or creator trying to make porn that’s safer, kinder, and more respectful of everyone involved, from the performers to the audience. I’ve seen the impact those spaces can have, and I think they’re essential.

But even in those curated corners of the internet, I often find myself looking for something else. Not something more connected… but something less possible.

Because the truth is, ethical porn has limits. There are fantasies that just don’t translate well to camera. Not without compromising safety, realism, or consent. Things like public sex, monster appendages, psychological mind games, surreal power exchanges… the kind of stuff that would never pass an intimacy coordinator’s checklist. And shouldn’t.

Which is why I stopped looking for those fantasies on screen.

And started writing them instead.

Fiction lets me go places video can’t. It lets me stretch reality without crossing any real-life lines. I can write things that are deeply consensual and still dangerous. Still hot. Still charged with risk, and fantasy, and taboo. But all contained on the page.

That article from 2019 was the start of a long search.

If you’re curious, I found an English-speaking updated list here:
Best Feminist Porn Sites – A Curated List

But more and more, I’ve realized the thing I was chasing doesn’t need to be filmed at all.
It just needs to be written.

 

What I Need More Of (And Don’t See Enough)

I don’t need my porn protagonists to be in love.
I don’t even need them to like each other. Angry sex? Great. Hate-fucks? Sure.

But I do need to know she’s into it. That it’s her choice. That nobody’s going to wake up the next morning wondering what happened or regretting what they didn’t consent to.

I’m not a prude, far from it, but I want the “naive, young, and dumb” stereotype scrubbed from the script. I want women who know when to say no. Women who choose submission, who own their desire, who aren’t just passive bodies with blank stares playing to someone else’s script.

I also want risk. Encounters where danger flirts at the edges but never strips away agency. I want women who take charge, unapologetically, and still lean into tenderness. I want women who let go completely and aren’t in charge at all, but with partners who know how to soften the intensity when it matters.

I want to see women undone. I want primal filth, undeniable enthusiasm, kink discovery, new layers of self-awareness, stories where characters surprise themselves as much as each other. And even if it’s a short scene, a flash of heat, I still want some level of introspection. Desire and emotion don’t cancel each other out. They make each other sharper.

And yes — I want to see pleasure that actually looks like pleasure.
The clit is right there. Could we maybe… try?

 

A Pause on Cindy Gallop

I have deep respect for what Cindy Gallop has built with MakeLoveNotPorn. She’s been saying the same thing, loudly and unapologetically, for years: “We need to see real-world sex.” Not porn-world sex. Not performative, male-gaze, jackhammer sex. But the kind of sex that actually happens when two (or more) people want each other.

She doesn’t dress it up. She talks openly about wanting to watch people fucking, in all the ways that porn edits out. The giggles. The lube runs. The awkward positions. The times you stop to adjust the pillow. The moments of care that prove the connection is real.

Her platform reframes “graphic” as not something dirty but something honest. And that’s radical. Because when you make real sex visible, you also make it easier for people to talk about what they want, what they like, what they need. That’s porn literacy in action, and Cindy was shouting it from the rooftops long before anyone else had the guts.

I admire that. I admire her. The way she’s made it her mission to normalize real intimacy, to celebrate pleasure without shame, to prove that sex is social and worth sharing. She’s not changing porn. She’s changed conversations.

My medium is different. I live in fiction. I work with fantasy, imagination, in places that only words can safely stretch. But our values overlap. Agency. Consent. Respect. A refusal to let pleasure be erased.

 

Fantasy ≠ Advocacy

This is where things can get sticky.

I write taboo. Exhibitionism. Monster erotica. Mind control. Some are stories Amazon won’t touch. These will live here on the site, and when the pieces get longer, they may eventually migrate to Smashwords.

But here’s the thing: writing taboo doesn’t mean I’m advocating for it in real life. I’m not promoting public sex with unsuspecting strangers. I’m not endorsing power imbalance without consent. I’m not here to blur the line between real-world danger and fictional thrill.

Where porn on screen often leaves me questioning whether a woman is truly sober, enthusiastic, or choosing the encounter, my stories don’t. Consent in my stories isn’t always spelled out in explicit negotiations, but it’s built into the scene. It lives in the current of the characters, in the way the story unfolds.

That matters to me. Especially in fantasy.

Because too often, I see the opposite: fantasies that erase the line completely. Stories where consent is a gimmick or an afterthought. And while I’ll write things that flirt with risk, or look dangerous on the surface, I don’t want my heat to come from erasure.

In my world, exhibitionism is always consensual. The watchers know. The watched agrees. The monster isn’t out to kill. Tentacles wont perforate. Nobody gets hurt. Because it’s all words, not flesh.

That distinction matters. And the more I write, the more I see there’s a certain responsibility in it.

 

What That Responsibility Looks Like

Writing erotica isn’t neutral. The stories we tell about sex shape how people think about their own bodies, their boundaries, their worth. Sometimes, it’s about rewriting trauma.

But responsibility doesn’t mean sterilizing fantasy. It means being intentional about how it lives on the page.

With Emma Lee, I lean into relationships and emotional nuance. Responsibility here means giving complexity to love, betrayal, longing, and not reducing characters to clichés.

With Georgia Sands, I experiment with the surreal, the risky edges of desire. Responsibility means keeping agency alive even in the uncanny.

With Sasha Stone (Play With Me’s latest voice), I write unconventional romance, where mutual respect and risk are charged with heat. Responsibility here is about consent in the spotlight.

And with Alma, the voice is darker, more clinical, dystopian. These stories walk through failed intimacy, engineered detachment, eroticism in sterile worlds. Responsibility here means not romanticizing dehumanization, but exploring it consciously. The characters might live inside cold systems, but I try to never confuse those systems with a sexual ideal.

So no, responsibility doesn’t mean every scene is tender or “positive.” It means I don’t eroticize harm without acknowledging what it is. I don’t erase choice just to generate arousal. I let the darker voices breathe, always with the awareness that they are fiction.

That’s the line I try to write on. And the exercise isn’t easy.

 

A Word on Inclusivity

Let’s lay it out plainly.

I’m a middle-aged, white, cis, hetero woman. I write from that place.

I don’t try to write trauma I haven’t lived.
I don’t assume I can authentically channel a trans POV.
I won’t speak from inside a Black woman’s experience.

That’s not respect. That’s not representation. That’s misappropriation.

What I can do is leave space.
As much as possible, I avoid describing my characters in strict physical terms. I want the reader to self-insert, imagine, project, engage. Not be locked out by a descriptor that doesn’t look like them.

What I do hope to write is something more universal:
The heat of being wanted.
The thrill of being seen.
The risk of being real.

 

Pleasure Is Political

Some people say erotica should just be sex.
Just escape.
No message. No meaning. Just read on and tune out.

But for me it doesn’t work that way.

Pleasure is political.
Writing about the body is political.
And the second you go public with your work, even anonymously, neutrality goes out the window.

I’m not trying to preach.
But I am trying to spotlight what I’m still having a hard time finding, and attempting to write.

I’m Not Writing for Everyone

I’ve only just started publishing on Amazon.
The reviews? Five stars or one. Nothing in between.

That tells me something: what I write cleaves. It polarizes.

And I’m fine with that.
I’m not writing for everyone.

I’m writing the stories I spent years searching for and couldn’t find.
Turns out, a few others were looking too.

Even if there are only twelve of us — that’s enough.
For now.

Because we’ve been waiting.
Because we want to want without turning off our minds.
Because we don’t think thought and arousal have to live in separate corners.

So I Write

I used to make lists of better porn.
Now, I write the stories I couldn’t find.

Stories where female pleasure is the plot as much as her journey.
Stories where the tension lives in the buildup and internalization, not in the erasure.
Stories where arousal doesn’t require cruelty, shame, or infantilization.

Some nights, I still scroll. Still hope.
But more often than not, I shut the porn, get to the keyboard, and start again.

Not to fix porn.
Not to wag fingers.
Just to say:

This turns me on.
This makes me feel something.
This is the kind of climax I want.

And if you’ve ever been buzz-deep in a vibrator, only to find yourself spiraling into a mini crisis about ethics and objectification?

You’re not alone.

Welcome.